The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

My mom has a big problem with my liking for English movies like The Matrix or X-Men or Iron Man. Movies which, according to her, must have been directed by someone who is not in the right frame of mind or definitely high on cocaine! Because she can’t understand the point of movies in which people are flying around in strange suits (Neo in Matrix) or having tongues (Toad in X-Men) which can be used as a weapon!
She has no patience for” such absurd movies”[sic] and would prefer movies which are serious and have a proper story...or a comedy but with a good story but no flying men!
This made me think. Where do the ideas for these so-called ABSURD movies come from? Is it not true that life inspires fiction more often, than the other way round?
Is it not true, that fact is stranger than fiction?
For instance, have you seen the movie “50 First Dates” starring Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler? It’s about this girl (Barrymore), who has a car accident which causes her to suffer from Anterograde Amnesia, a loss of the ability to create new memories , which causes each day’s events to erase from her memory overnight , and for her time has stopped on the day of her accident. It was an absurd comedy and we all laughed watching the movie. I mean it’s an Adam Sandler movie, right?
But, what if there were actually a person like Drew Barrymore’s character out there somewhere?
Read out the excerpts of stories, from Dr. Oliver Sacks’ “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and other clinical tales” published in 1985, and judge for yourself. Dr. Oliver Sacks is a New York based Neurologist, who was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2008.
Take the case of 49 year old ex-Navy man, Jimmie G. He was admitted in Dr. Sacks home for the aged in the year 1975. An intelligent, personable, likable man, he had very clear memory of his growing up years, the town in Connecticut, where he grew up, and early years in the Navy, when he served in the WW II. But, there was only one problem. He believed that he was living in the year 1945! And he was still 19 years old and Truman was the president of USA and of course, Allied forces had just won the Second World War!
And of course, like one of the characters in “50 First Dates” he had extraordinary loss of recent memory, a condition known as Korsakov’s Syndrome. In one session, after Dr. Sacks had examined Jimmie for a sufficiently long time and then gone out of the room to come back in couple of minutes, he found that Jimmie had no recognition at all of the doctor or the interaction which had taken place till few minutes back. He was extremely good at arithmetic or algebra or games like checkers and tic tac toe if it could be done at lightning speed, but totally lost at chess. The moves were too slow and he lost track! The doctor tried to encourage Jimmie to keep a diary, in which he would write down his experiences. But, this move also failed because he would keep losing his diary all the time and even when the diary was physically attached to him, he would not recognise his own handwriting and was always surprised and indifferent, that he had written something before. He was a man with no “day before”. As Dr. Sacks put it, Jimmie was both aware and not aware of this loss of ‘self’. If a man loses an eye or a leg, he is aware of the loss. But when he has lost himself, he is not there to know it. But, though with no recent memory, he had a strange inertia and gave an overwhelming sense of “something missing”. The only person whom Jimmie recognised was his elder brother, but was always perplexed as to how he looked so old! But, these were the only emotional meetings Jimmie had, the only so-called connection of his past and his present...

Now take the story of Christina, for instance. A self assured, robust 27-year old mother of two, she worked as a computer programmer at home. Intelligent and cultivated, Christina liked hockey and riding and was fond of the ballet. Active and fit, she hardly had any illness in her entire life. So, somewhat to her surprise, she was found to have gallstones, for which removal of gall bladder was advised. She was admitted to hospital 3 days before the operation. The day before the operation, she had a strange and disturbing dream. In her dream, Christina was swaying wildly, very unsteady on her feet, could hardly feel the ground beneath her, could hardly feel her hands, and kept dropping whatever she picked up. Naturally, she was distressed by the dream. But, later the same day, the dream came true! She could not stand unless she looked at her feet, could hold nothing in her hands and they ‘wandered’ unless she kept an eye on them. She could not even sit up- her body gave way! Her face went slack and expressionless, jaw fell open and even vocal posture was gone. In her words, she felt DISEMBODIED. Her condition worsened so much that doctors considered putting her on the respirator. On examination, she was found to be afflicted with a condition called Acute Polyneuritis.
She had lost her Proprioception, i.e. one’s own perception or sense of the relative positioning of neighbouring parts of the body. Proprioception is like the “eyes” of the body, which she had lost, and it was as if her body had gone blind. But, there is no limit to the strength of the human mind. Christina, the tough woman that she was, fought back. After the initial shock and horror had worn off, she started moving, using her vision as substitute for the lack of Proprioception. The natural movements, to which we never give a second thought, had to be replaced by an artificial, regulated movement. She managed to bring about some semblance of working life, but only with extreme vigilance on her movements. Her life was condemned to this artificiality, and of course that had its emotional toll. The lack of social support and sympathy was an additional burden. Disabled, but nature of disability not clear. How do you explain lack of Proprioception to a normal human being?

Third is the story of Dr. P, a gifted musician, who was well known as a singer for many years, and then as a teacher at a school of music. It was in the School that he started facing strange problems. Students would present themselves in front of Dr. P and he would not recognise them, i.e. not recognise their faces. The moment they spoke, he would recognise them. Think this might happen to lot of people. Well, hear the next development. Dr. P started seeing faces when there were none. So, this led to many hilarious situations, not uncommon for Dr. Calculus in the Tintin comics, like patting the heads of water hydrants and parking meters, taking them to be heads of children!
When Dr. Sacks visited Dr. P at his home to observe him further, he found that he could recognise abstract shapes easily. So platonic solids like a cube, dodecahedron and icosahedrons presented no problems. When shown photographs, he easily recognised Churchill’s cigar and Einstein’s characteristic hair and moustache. But, shown photographs of his own family, he could not recognise almost anybody. When shown a red rose, Dr. P described it as “A convoluted red form with green attachments!” Only when asked to smell it, did he recognise it to be a rose.
On one occasion, while leaving Dr. Sacks’ chamber, Dr. P started looking around for his hat. He reached out his hand and took hold of his wife’s head, tried to lift it off, to put it on.
He had mistaken his wife for a hat!
I will be honest. I bought Dr. Oliver Sacks’ “The man who mistook his wife for a hat and other clinical tales” for a very simple reason. I liked the curious name! But, as I read on, I found that the title is the least interesting part of the book. It has many interesting stories or case studies, which in Dr. Sacks’ easy going and humorous style makes for wonderful reading.
Of course, I had prior experience of his writings, having read his “The Island of the Colorblind and Cycad Island”. But, having read the book, I strongly feel that it is worth every penny spent; if you want to experience the saying- fact is way stranger than fiction.
Speaking of the absurd or strange, after reading these stories, I somehow find flying men in red capes and men bitten by radioactive spiders developing supernatural abilities, a distinct possibility! It’s only a matter of time, before I find a specimen Homo superior, to my mom. Yup, I dream of the day when we will both find the movie, X-Men enjoyable and real.